Micah Shrewsberry confirmed yesterday that he will meet with UMass officials this morning in what is the Celtics assistant coach’s second interview for the vacant men’s basketball job in Amherst.

Shrewsberry also said he will go into the meeting with an open mind, not knowing what he will do if the job is offered. But according to a league source knowledgeable of the off-kilter dynamics at play at UMass, “it sounds like the job is his if he wants it.”

The future of the program has been in limbo since Thursday, when Pat Kelsey pulled out of the job after not only agreeing to take it, but after the athletic department set up a press conference to introduce the coach. Kelsey opted not to leave Winthrop College to coach the Minutemen.

In the meantime, officials reached out to Shrewsberry to come in for a second interview. Shrewsberry was part of a group of coaching candidates that also included Joe Dooley (Florida Gulf Coast) and Mike Rhoades, who has since taken the job at VCU. The source said a highly regarded, unidentified Division 1 assistant coach pulled his name out of consideration Saturday morning.

Shrewsberry was known to be making calls this weekend to local coaches in an attempt to get an idea of local talent, including one geographic location that has long been off the UMass radar — the Boston area.

Anthony Gurley, who transferred from Wake Forest to UMass and played his final season for the Minutemen in 2010-11, is the last Boston player to make an appearance on the UMass roster.

And there indeed was a time when UMass had a Boston pipeline, including St. John’s transfer Shannon Crooks (2001-02), Monty Mack (1996-01), Jonathan DePina (1997-01) and Carmelo Travieso, a starter on the Minutemen team that reached the 1996 Final Four before losing to eventual champion Kentucky.

Mark Murphy covered his first NBA season for the Boston Herald in 1989-90, Jimmy Rodgers' last as Celtics coach and a point when injuries were starting to overtake the careers of Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. He was one of the first NBA writers to cover professional basketball in the Olympics with the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona, and took a detour out to western Massachusetts to chronicle the rise of John Calipari and UMass basketball. He returned to the Celtics beat in 2001, and was on hand for the dawn of a second Big Three era - this time with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and the Celtics' 17th NBA title in 2008.

Mark Murphy covered his first NBA season for the Boston Herald in 1989-90, Jimmy Rodgers' last as Celtics coach and a point when injuries were starting to overtake the careers of Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. He was one of the first NBA writers to cover professional basketball in the Olympics with the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona, and took a detour out to western Massachusetts to chronicle the rise of John Calipari and UMass basketball. He returned to the Celtics beat in 2001, and was on hand for the dawn of a second Big Three era - this time with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and the Celtics' 17th NBA title in 2008.